ot even to
discuss it, for we are scarcely capable of understanding it. The place
whereon we stand is holy ground."

"Henry," said his wife, "there's no fool like an old fool. You don't
know what you are talking about."

But when Dr. Howe, softening a little since Mr. Dale did not abuse John
Ward, said he must tell Helen that,--it would please her,--Mrs. Dale
begged him to do nothing of the sort.

"It would be just like her to consider the whole affair a unique mode of
expressing affection. We had better try to show her it is a disgrace to
the family. Love, indeed! Well, I don't understand love like that!"

"No," Mr. Dale responded, "no, I suppose not. But, my dear, don't you
wish you did?"

When Dr. Howe told Helen of his plan of going to Lockhaven, she tried
to show him that it was useless; but as she saw his determination, she
ceased to oppose him. She would have spared John if she could (and she
knew how impossible it was that the rector could move her husband), yet
she felt that her family had a right to insist upon a personal
explanation, and to make an effort, however futile, to induce her husband
to take her home. In the mean time, they waited for an answer to the
rector's letter. Helen had written, but she knew no answer would come to
her. She understood too well that sweet and gentle nature, which yielded
readily in small things, and was possessed of invincible determination in
crises, to hope that John could change. Yet she had written; she had
shared her hopelessness as well as her grief with him, when she told him
how impossible it was for her to think as he did. She showed how fast and
far she had drifted into darkness and unbelief since she had left him,
yet she held out no hope that a return to him could throw any light into
those eternal shadows. "I understand it all," she had written, stopping
to comfort him even while she told him how futile was his pain and hers,
"and oh, how you must suffer, my darling, but it cannot be helped unless
you free yourself from your convictions. Perhaps that will come some
time; until then, you can only be true to yourself. But I understand it
all,--I know."

Those days of waiting were hard to bear. The distance between her uncle
and herself had suddenly widened; and she could not see that beneath his
irritation there was really a very genuine sympathy.

She had vaguely hoped that Lois would comfort her, for one turns
instinctively in grief to the nearest loving